[3.19] Helix BaneBlast Champion

Summary
Champion focuses on chaos damage and poison via cluster jewels and gear damage increases. Bane applies a double-curse of Despair (obviously) and Punishment (what??), then uses either :

1) a 6 link Spectral Helix when bossing or laying down a killing field for constant spawning enemies

2) a 4 Link HexBlast for blasting minion groups (the chain reaction) or if a Boss is just too dangerous to get close to/constantly running away (slower, but doable)

Very durable, even in this age of Archnemesis mods. Good damage, but better gear would up that further. Currently level 91 and not really feeling like it's capping out yet. In theory I have a few more nodes to pick up in the passive, though in practice I usually cap out at 92... maybe this will be the one that hits 96+!


I play SFF, so this is all gear that I accumulated to try out on standard. There may be better gear for purpose for you to improved upon. Don't take this as a highly optimized Bible.



Story
This one has been a journey. One of my first characters was a Duelist Cyclone/blocking Gladiator, which ran out of steam around level 72. It sat shuttered for years. In sentinel, I picked up a LOT of toys that seemed to synergize and wanted to try them out. So Rolandrian emerged from the mothballs and was retooled.

The Gladiator was rerolled as a Champion to up survivability in an Archnemesis world. First attempt was a Cast-while-Channeling Cyclone/Voltaxic Burst with aHerald of Agony to bump poison and apply withered. Amazing Clear, and against most Rares/Bosses did well, but started feeling like I'd capped the damage I could do and it just wasn't enough at the "top end". I retooled again, and the Helix BaneBlast was born which is better for bossing.


Theory

Punishment has gotten a bad rap, and I think it's mostly historical. Yes, when initially rolled out it sucked. It does NOT anymore, both by adding abilities that work on application rather than hit, AND changing Low Life to 50% makes it apply for a larger chunk of the damage. Would I use it as my only Curse? probably not. But as a SECOND curse it's great... It's Culling, but better.

A 3 link Divergent Bane/Despair/Punishment combo (I was running 4 links with Controlled Destruction added but had Chromatic problems on switching gloves.) This sets up a strong Damge over Time, lowers Chaos resistance, and adds more Chaos Damage to the hits, which Spectral Helix takes good advantage of. Punishment reduces damage to you and things start melting when they get to half life. It seems like the Overkill/Bane Explode both happen. Bane alone, without the blast, can generally melt minions if you have other things to occupy you (even moreso when Controlled Destruction is in play as a 4th link.)

A 4 link Hexblast/[B]Added Chaos Damage[/b]/Chance to Poison/Void Manipulation. Not a lot to explain here... tag a group with Bane then hit Hexblast ONCE or TWICE to do big damage to the whole minion group. If one dies they probably all go up. If not, reapply Bane quickly. The Hexblast will have applied a strong poison also.

A 6 link Spectral Helix/Chance to Poison/Withering Touch/Vile Toxins/Faster Attacks/Added Chaos Damage. With 100% chance to poison, 3/4 Chaos and 1/4 Physical damage, and rapid application of Wither, Spectral Helix can really rip up a Rare/Boss if you get in fairly close, and by the time you hit 50%, Punishment application is notable, increasing damage taken by over 90%. That's when you shift into high gear.

Most everything else is about Survivability.

4 link Molten Steel/Enduring Cry/Arctic Armor/Increased Duration

Level 16 Clarity, Determinaton, Defiance Banner, Siphoning Trap (HUGE regen when things get rough and don't have to worry about it dying), Flame Dash to get the hell out of Dodge, Consecrated Path for additional regen and an attack vector as a slightly more effective version of the Dash.

I have a free blue socket (where it's showing Arcane Surge... odd), so I have Increased Area linked to Consecrated Path, but it could go away and wouldn't care. this is an artifact of the chromatic problem on my gloves so had to move gems around to get things to work and that was leftover. Maybe I should swap with Sigil of Power. Hmmmmm. EDIT: Yes, this works pretty nicely. Takes a bit to ramp up, but the build is defensive enough to do it. I have it at level 9... might have wanted to stick to 7 or 8 to max it out faster for the additional damage protection.


Gear

Pair of Breath of the Councils for good physical damage and big Chaos scaling.


Cospri's Will enables poison, and double-hexing.


Rare helmet, spell suppression, damage taken as lightning, boosted punishment, some resistances.


Elder gloves. The life I couldn't pass by as Cospri's doesn't have any, so I stopped rolling. Tried to use the Menagery to add my last item and it flubbed it with a trivial regeneration. Will be replaced as I find something better then I can try rolling again.


Two-Toned boots as I needed to get my resistances up to snuff.


Mostly for the chaos resistance and armor. Will be swapped to something better as I get it.



Jewelry



Passive Tree

Zoomed out to give you an idea, without the deets. The cluster jewels are Chaos Damage and Chaos Damage over time + Reservation Efficiency nad Maximum life on the smalls.

look nice how's is it doing?

"

dmoniak wrote:

look nice how's is it doing?

Doing well. Taking out things my Sentinel-league character could never consider surviving, such as possessed bosses and "touched" nemesis mobs, though many times that's playing the game of cat and mouse with the hexblast.

Still need more spell suppression and health on gear.


Considering the impact of projectile speed on the build. Right now, I tend to not use Spectral unless I'm up close and personal because it just takes too long to get any radius, though I've heard that higher speed is a double-edged sword in terms of damage to large targets. As the hexblast combo works pretty well for minions, that tends to be my go-to when I'd otherwise get overwhelmed so probably won't change much there... a change there means less of something else.


Taking a short break as a palette-cleanser.

Any way to get a PoB link for this ?

would also love to see a PoB for this, looks like its fun to try out!

I'll see what I can do. I don't really use PoB so not especially familiar with how to do things. For example, completely unsure how the cluster gems segment work in the tool, but I've only played with it a little.

Getting there. Not 100% accurate as I can't figure out how to add some things (like searing exarch implcits) and for some reason I have 20 less intelligence in Path of Building than I should. (found the discrepancy)

Bear in mind that I'm SSF so there's massive room for improvement. Don't know that I'm sharing this right (or that it's built quite right in PoB, correct assumtpions for calcs, etc) but this is the general idea at least.


There's room to play. For example, ditching Defiance to make room for Determination in that socket, so that you can boost Bane with Controlled Destruction. I haven't done that yet, lacking enough Chromatics to make it happen.



Edit: the savefile data
https://pastebin.com/LiCcvM65#rLm2vg4K

The export data:
https://pastebin.com/0Cjeq1vN

Thank you for this, will check it out :)

hey man. seems your pastebin link is not working

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mariusgenis wrote:

hey man. seems your pastebin link is not working

As I mentioned, I'm not a PoB user. I was hoping people would guide me on how to do this if it wasn't right, but that doesn't look like it happened.

"

Don't know that I'm sharing this right

So, the first paste was the contents of the save file I'd found. In theory, you can copy it to a file in your saves folder and load it directly.

I just found/added the Export. Let me know if that works better (and it not, suggestions are welcome!)